Category: Uncategorized

I went inside to ask her out, but she still made me pay for the gas.

I’ve gotten in the habit of harassing a co-worker by turning off his monitor every time I walk by his desk. Due to office geography, this is about thirty times a day.

Today he started fighting back.

OK, people are demanding a recount of the weekend events, so here are my observations of BlogNashville:

• I should have taken the good camera, the view of downtown from the Belmont parking lot was pretty amazing.
• The Curb Events Center at Belmont is a lot nicer than Mike Curb’s offices on Music Row.
• I thought I was sitting in the back of the room where the opening cememonies would be held. It turned out to be the front of the room.
• When Dave Winer was taking requests for the group sing-along, I turned to the people next to me and said, “Freebird.” Glenn Reynolds heard me and repeated it into his mike. He really is the human aggregator.
• Mr. Roboto didn’t carry a computer around with him, but he was still able to respond to this post from Blake. He flipped him off from across the room.
• Terry Heaton goes to so many conferences, he has his own nametag and lanyard. Points for style, points off for not assimilating.
• John Cox looks like Penn Jillette.
• The waitress at Tabouli‘s must have a degree in customer service. I asked if it was OK for us to get separate checks. She said,”No.” She actually did end up splitting the check. Into two checks. (There were 8 of us at the table. It was the most brilliant passive-aggressive move I’ve ever seen.)
• Playing with Flickr was really fun. It’s the killer app for nerd conferences.
• The conference topics were interesting, but I found more value in reading what other people were writing about what other people were writing about what was was actually going on in the session. WHILE I WAS IN THE SESSION. And if that didn’t work, Dan Gilmor has a really cool NASA screen saver.
• Hammock Publishing has some of the nicest empolyees I’ve ever met. Especially the ones that share educational experiences with former first ladies.
• My favorite part of the closing ceremonies? Bill Hobbs ceremoniously pulling the plug on the free Wi-Fi.

All in all it was a fun day.

Earlier tonight at the BlogNashville welcome party, I witnessed “Instapundit” Glenn Reynolds take a picture of the incredibly nice young woman selling T-shirts. Trying to be all meta, I took a picture of him taking the picture. He since has posted his picture to his site.

(The postscript to this postmodern tale–he didn’t actually buy a shirt.)

A few months ago I purchased a Canon Powershot SD200 from CompUSA. It was an impulse buy, but my old Canon S100 had finally bitten the dust, the slider switch that changes the camera modes from camera to movie to play had fallen off, making it generally unusable. I like to always have a camera with me and I was about to go on a business trip to see a project I’ve been working on for a year for the last time. I needed a camera, quick.

I went in looking and I ended up buying. Some backstory, I had gotten my first camera from Best Buy, it was a Christmas gift, and the gifter had thought ahead and purchased the extended warranty plan. That proved to come in pretty handy after I let a friend borrow the camera he dropped it and stopped working. Since then I’ve been a pretty strong advocate for getting the extended extra warranty that they always try and sell you. Thinking the power of capitalism would make the Best Buy/CompUSA warranties similar, it was an easy sell for the guy as I was asking about the CompUSA warranty before he had the chance to mention it.

Two weeks ago at Rebuilding Together, I placed the new camera in my pocket with my phone. The task at hand was picking up rocks I bent over and I heard a snap. (I always get into trouble when attempting feats of strength.) The phone had pressed against the LCD screen and snapped it in half. Camera still worked, but without the screen it made things difficult. But luckily I remembered: I had bought the warranty.

I went to CompUSA that same day. I took it in with the expectation that I would get a new camera immediately and be on my merry way. I showed him the camera, showed him the cracked LCD screen, he started filling out the paperwork telling me that it would be 7-14 days before the repair could be made. I was upset that I didn’t get a replacement immediately, but the camera would be fixed and all would be fine in 7-14 days.

Well, today was day 12. I got a call this morning from a standoffish CompUSA employee who told me over the phone that since the LCD was broken this amounted to physical abuse which they wouldn’t repair. I inquired why if a broken LCD wasn’t covered, why did they take the camera for me in the first place? Why did it take two weeks to come to that conclusion? Why, even though it costs the same, why does the Best Buy plan cover so much more?

He had no legitimate answers for any of these questions, so I had to explain to him that this was not a satisfactory situation and that I would have to part ways with my personal CompUSA shopping habits. I explained further that I was going to have part ways with my corporate CompUSA shopping habits. (I’m in there for work about twice a month.) I also explained that I had just purchased a Canon Digital Rebel XT with the extended warranty from this very store, and now I greatly regretted not buying the camera from Best Buy.

He told me what he could do was to look around the store and see if they had any returns or refurbished cameras that could be used as a replacement unit. He said he couldn’t promise that it would be the same brand or even camera type. He said he would call me back.

An hour later he calls me back and tells me that he’s found something. I go to the store ready to fight, I was planning on refusing anything less than the camera that I had brought in. I was going to demand my camera back along with a refund of the price of the warranty. I was mentally prepared to go to war, I was ready to make a scene right there for all to see.

Twasn’t needed. He had a new camera waiting for me.

Now I don’t know what I said that made him relent, or if “sorry this isn’t covered” is just the scripted response for all claims, but I guess I can’t be too upset anymore.

Tonight on the Apprentice, Tana couldn’t find beads on the island of Manhattan. Where is Peter Minuit when you need him?

Walking around the Mall at Green Hills this weekend I noticed that the store next to Brookstone had been replaced with a black wall and an ominous looking cherry tomato logo. It can only mean one thing, Nashville is getting an Apple Store.

So why do I care?

I used to be a Mac guy. A virulent, hard core, dedicated Mac user. The obnoxious kind, with the T-shirts, web page graphics, and the magazine subscriptions. I was an evangelist. I was in love with Janie Porche and Ellen Feiss. There was no step three.

The first computer I had at home was an Apple IIc, which later was replaced by a Mac SE, and then a Mac LCIII, and then a Power Mac 6100, and finally a Power Mac 7500. I drove to Knoxville from my home in South Carolina to be the first one in line when the UT computer store opened to buy the 7500. I wasn’t the only one in line.

I cut my teeth on System 7, MacOS 8, flirted with MacOS 9…but I made the switch to PCs well before time that MacOS X finally shipped. By the end of my college career I was working in the architecture school’s print lab, it was the first year it was open and the PCs were faster than my now aging Mac. I finished my thesis on those computers and never looked back. When I started my professional career, everything was PC, since the workhorse software that architects use is firmly dedicated to Wintel. I didn’t fight it. My switch to the dark side was complete.

But I miss my Mac sometimes. And with the resurgence that Apple has seen over the past few years, and the new hardware offerings that call out my name, it’s hard to stay faithful. Perhaps I’ve already switching back…, I mean, I’ve got an iPod, but that’s more of a cultural thing than a computing statement. I use iTunes, but mostly because it’s easy and now I know lots of folks in the music industry who would be upset with me if I didn’t. I know that the Mac Mini would be perfect to play around with…but I just got a new laptop and I realize that having more than one computer is simply time-wasting endeavor. But I’m torn.

Bottom line, if you see me hanging around the Genius Bar waxing nostalgic, do me a favor: slap me and lead me to the Dell kiosk.

Every year for the past few years I’ve been involved with an organization called Rebuilding Together. As the website says, it’s mission is “to preserve and revitalize houses and communities, assuring that low-income homeowners, from the elderly and disabled to families with children, live in warmth, safety, and independence.” We go and do what we can in a day to fix up houses in disrepair for deserving families. Each house is sponsored by another organization, the house today was sponsored by AIA Middle Tennessee.

My job today was to clean and repair an existing mailbox and provide a coat of much needed paint. I also served as a runner back and forth the Home Depot and did my best to offer unsolicited general supervision.

I also took pictures. Enjoy.